Every few years, the flames of Afrophobia erupt in South Africa and the Nigerian public square performs the same ritual. First comes condemnation. South Africans are cast as “pathologically xenophobic,” incapable of distinguishing oppressor from victim. Then comes the quieter counter-narrative. Nigerian migrants, this voice insists, are criminal, unruly, and unwilling to assimilate. They give the country a bad name. This double pathology obscures a deeper reality. Xenophobic violence in South Africa is not a cultural disease but the structural